The Curse of the Pharaohs' Tombs

by Harrison Paul

Subsequently, a variety of treasures that can only have come from the tomb have been unearthed and are on display in museums across the globe. Some bear the royal inscription of Tutankhamun and are clearly from the tomb, yet none appear in the official register! It is believed that up to 60 per cent of the contents of Tutankhamun’s tomb were never registered, or recorded. Carter claims this is because they had been stolen by tomb robbers, again deflecting any blame or doubt about his own involvement. Can we believe that objects were being randomly stolen by others without his knowledge, when he was so precious and controlling about managing every aspect of recovery of the treasures removed from the tomb?

  It has long been my belief that Howard Carter told his own version of what happened. It must be regarded as the ‘official’ version, and while I am not a believer in conspiracy theories, I do believe the truth of what happened in the tomb of the boy King Tutankhamun has been suppressed because of the scandal that would ensure if the truth was ever revealed. I don’t believe that Carnarvon knew the scale of the pilfering; Carter was probably acting alone in this respect. Carnarvon was being guided by his archaeologist and so trusted his judgement on all matters relating to the legalities of the excavations. There can be no doubt that the fame this find created benefited Carter; he was awarded an honorary doctorate and rubbed shoulders with many eminent and powerful authorities, including United States President Calvin Coolidge, who invited him to tea! Horst Beinlich, Egyptologist at Wurzburg University, described Carter as a ‘thoroughly honest man full of idealism.’ It is only now that we can question the accuracy of this opinion, in the light of evidence that suggests that Howard Carter, for so long a great hero of the British Empire, manipulated the discovery for his own benefit. Many of Howard Carter’s peers suspected him to be stealing artifacts from the tomb and knew of the deceit. On 25 January 1923, his friend and fellow Egyptologist Arthur Weigall wrote a letter to Carter. The following is an extract:

  The situation is this. You and Carnarvon made the initial error when you discovered the tomb of thinking that the old British prestige in this country is still maintained and that you could do more or less what you liked. You have found this tomb, however, at a moment when the last spark may send the whole magazine sky-high, when the utmost diplomacy is needed, when Egyptians have to be considered in a way which you and I are not accustomed to, and when the slightest false step may do the utmost disservice to our own enemy. You opened the tomb before you notified the Government representative, and the natives all say that you may therefore have had the opportunity of stealing some of the millions’ of pounds of gold of which you talked. (I give this as an instance of native gossip about you).

  Carter did not respond in writing to this communication, but he did so in kind, in a manner that he knew would greatly upset Weigall. He refused to allow Weigall any private access to the tomb and he was only able to visit it as a member of the public. Carter later wrote of the matter ‘Much to his chagrin he was not allowed in the tomb except with the public’. If this was a modern-day police investigation Carter would have many questions to answer, particularly concerning the initial entering of the tomb and the finding of the wooden bust found by Pierre Lacau. Can we truly trust Carter’s version as accurate and truthful? If the answer is not a resounding yes, which I do not believe it can be, then we must question everything. The finding of the tomb of King Tutankhamun was not only Carter’s crowning moment, it was also viewed as a wonderful achievement by the British Empire. The thought that the find was potentially tainted by deception is not palatable at all. Was there a curse in Tutankhamun’s tomb? We will never know. Carter destroyed much during his excavation of that tomb, not least the mummified body of the pharaoh himself. To my mind there is a real possibility that he intentionally destroyed things that might have hindered or negatively affected him, and prevented him from reaching his professional goals.

  Finally, evidence exists that Carter, or someone in his team, plundered much of the treasure. Artifacts that can only have come from the tomb have turned up in museums across the world. In the Louvre in Paris there is a ‘ushabti’ figure bearing Tutankhamun’s inscription; in Kansas City (United States) two golden hawks’ heads, which had been taken from the necklace laid next to the mummy’s skin, are on display. None of these are registered in Carter’s tomb records.

  Howard Carter was rightly recognised for his work discovering the tomb. However, I believe that temptation got the better of him; he entered the tomb illegally, stole objects and fraudulently recorded details and manipulated photographic evidence of the find. The seeming web of lies and deceit, which is only now gradually being uncovered, casts a shadow over the excellent work he carried out. I am certain that the greatest archaeological find of all time has been seriously tainted by his deception.

  Chapter 10

  Mysterious Happenings

  We have already made mention of Egyptologist Arthur Weigall. Weigall, who was a firm believer in the curse, was involved in another inexplicable incident. On a visit to Egypt with his wife and an American artist friend, Joseph Lindon Smith, who was also accompanied by his wife, the group decided, as a light-hearted piece of entertainment, to act out a play at the head of the Valley of the Queens, in front of a selected audience. At one of the rehearsals, however, Mrs Smith was suddenly struck with a constant fierce pain in her eyes. Later the same day Mrs Weigall fell ill and developed severe abdominal pains. Both women were rushed to hospital. The medical teams could find no reason for the pains, but advised both women to rest. Local people soon began talking of the curse, and Weigall immediately cancelled the play, believing that the spirits of the goddesses buried within the Valley of the Queens had somehow attacked both women, causing them to fall ill as a warning. Weigall later said of the incident: ‘I have heard the most absurd nonsense talked in Egypt by those who believe in the malevolence of the ancient dead; but at the same time I try to keep an open mind on the subject.’ In the temple of Ptah at Karnak stands a statue of Sekmhet. This statue has a terrible reputation and is reputed to be cursed. For many years it has been thought that on moonlit nights the statue wanders the local streets seeking out children to seize and kill. Reports of child disappearances seem to have haunted the region. It seems incredible that no one believed there to be some kind of child abductor operating within their midst, nor a serial killer, and that the incidents were blamed on the soul of Sekhmet.

  Sekhmet was an aggressive solar goddess, believed to be the instrument of divine retribution. She is depicted with the body of a human and a leonine head, often surmounted by a sun disk. According to the legend, death first came into the world when the Eye of Ra was sent down as Sekhmet to punish rebellious humanity. ‘She who dances on blood’ almost destroyed the entire human race before she was tricked into stopping. Since humans were believed to have sprung from the tears of the Eye of Ra, Sekhmet was slaughtering her own children. Of all the archer goddesses in Egypt, Sekhmet was the most feared: her arrows were said to transform into seven messengers who inflicted pain, torture, plague and destruction upon humanity. At one time, local villagers were so irate and fearful about the statue, that they grouped together, entered the temple and physically attacked it with clubs and stones. No matter how hard they tried, they could not destroy it.

  Over the years, there have been reports of visitors to the temple claiming that they have seen the statue move. Several have reportedly become hysterical and been carried away from the area to calm down. Mary Nicholson was one of a number of people who were looking at the statue when several people said they heard a strange creaking noise:

  We stood looking at it, the statue of Sekhmet, nobody had told us anything untoward about it, and we had no idea at the time of its fearsome reputation, it was just another amazing statue. I would think there were about five of us looking at it when we heard this grinding creaking sound coming from within the monument. We all took a step back fearing an earthquake and that it might fall forward. The noise continued for a few more sec
onds, and by now we all had our eyes transfixed on the statue. Then it moved, just slightly initially, but I definitely saw its head move. Then its arm extended out towards us, right where we stood, in its hand it is holding a lotus blossom. The arm appeared to extend forward, moving closer to us, and as it did so its head moved. It was one of those occasions when you think someone is playing a practical joke on you, but you aren’t certain. We all laughed nervously, and then it moved again, this time we screamed out in terror. One woman was screaming ‘It’s alive, it’s alive!’ Two officials came over to us and asked what had happened, so we told them, expecting them to dismiss our claims. They didn’t. Instead, they asked us to leave the shrine area where the statue stood, and to join other groups of tourists. One of the men told us that the statue was cursed and that many people had seen it move, even local Egyptian people. They wouldn’t allow us to take a photograph of it once this happened, we just had to get out of the area. When we spoke to other Egyptian people about it, people in the museums, they said they were aware of many similar reports and that it was a belief that the statue of Sekhmet was cursed by an evil soul. I tried to forget the entire episode but I still have nightmares about it and the most concerning thing is, I can’t explain it at all. No one can, but it moved, I swear it did.

  A further unconnected mysterious happening occurred on 10 March 1971, this time not at Karnak, but in Sakkara, on the edge of the desert approximately 20 miles south of Cairo. Men working on a dig had been labouring in the desert sun since 7am. It was 2pm when they downed tools and stopped for the day, exhausted after bringing tons of rubble and rock to the surface from 30 feet down. Sakkara had become an attractive place to dig; the cemetery has been identified as Memphis, ancient city of the dead, and stretches some 4½ miles in length and 500 to 1,500 yards wide.

  Having discovered a hidden tomb in Sakkara, Walter Brian Emery, professor of Egyptology, took ill and later died. The circumstances are as follows. One of the workers in his team uncovered a deep hole that contained a statue, not more than 20cm in length. It was a statue of Osiris, the God of Dead. The worker immediately handed the statue over to Emery, who took it with him to his dig-house. There he placed it on a table and took a shower, while his assistant Ali-al Khouli went to sit on the outside terrace. Suddenly the assistant heard a noise from inside the house. Thinking it was Emery, he called out to him but received no answer. In search of Emery, he opened the door to the bathroom. The assistant later reported:

  I sat here on the couch. Suddenly I heard moaning coming from the washroom. I looked through the door, which was ajar, and saw Emery holding onto the basin. ‘Are you sick?’ I called out, but the professor did not reply. He stood there as if paralyzed. I grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him onto the couch. Then I ran for the telephone.

  An ambulance was called and Emery was rushed to the British hospital in Cairo. The diagnosis was clear; paralysis of the right side. The unfortunate Emery was unable to speak and was comforted at his bedside by Mary, his wife, who accompanied him on countless expeditions. Mary remained at his side throughout the night, but the next day, Thursday 11 March 1971, Walter Bryan Emery died. The Cairo newspaper Al Ahram reported his death, writing: ‘This strange occurrence leads us to believe that the legendary curse of the pharaohs has been reactivated.’

  A similar fate befell German archaeologist Karl Richard Lepsius (1810–84). After receiving his doctorate following his dissertation, De tabulis Eugubinis, in 1833, he travelled to Paris and attended lectures by French classicist Jean Letronne, an early disciple of Jean-François Champollion and his work on the decipherment of the Egyptian language. Lepsius had successfully carried out a dig in Valley of the Kings and was fortunate to discover a complete tomb. When he left, he took with him an entire pillar from the tomb of Seth I, which was transported to Berlin. There, he suddenly fell ill and was paralysed down one side of his body. Much later, he was diagnosed as suffering from cancer. He is said to have believed his paralysis was put upon him by the wrath of the pharaohs, who were angered by his actions.

  Another German-born doctor and Egyptologist to suffer was Theodoor Bilharz, who first came to Egypt with Professor William Greznera, and worked with the king of Egypt, Khedive Ismaïl. In 1850 Greznera left the country to make his way back to Germany, leaving Bilharz to stay on alone. Bilharz went in search of undiscovered monuments and relics of the ancient Egyptian era and investigated the anatomy of many mummies. In 1856, he was elected President of the Anatomy and Pathology Department at the University of Freiburg. In the same year he discovered the eggs of the bilharzia worm in the body of an Egyptian mummy from the 20th dynasty. In 1858 he became head of the Egyptian Researchers and Archaeologists’ Association, and in 1862 he travelled with Ernest II’s wife during her journey to Luxor. It was during his return trip to Cairo that he suffered an asthma attack and passed out. Two weeks later, he died aged just 37, having been in a deep coma since the day of the attack. The solitary reason given for his death was the mysteriously sudden asthma attack! Some believe his death was connected with a curse, because of the desecration of hundreds of mummies he had examined as part of his studies.

  One of the most curious incidents connected to ancient Egyptian archaeology is the deaths of Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and his American colleague, Professor George Reisner, in 1942. Both were prominent Egyptologists. Reisner had previously discovered the tomb of Khufu’s mother, and he made media history when he shared his knowledge of the Great Pyramid by delivering a worldwide broadcast from within the King’s Chamber in 1939. In the spring of 1942, Reisner was working inside the pyramid when he collapsed. Although he was almost entirely blind, he was articulate and extremely vocal and he had made no comment about feeling unwell. The onset of the illness was sudden, and resulted in him being dragged from the pyramid paralysed. Shortly afterwards he died. The cause of his death remains the subject of speculation. Reisner was buried in the American cemetery in Mari Girgis, Cairo.

  Catastrophe struck again on 28 July of the same year, when Petrie was making his way home to England. While in Jerusalem, he too suddenly and inexplicably died. Stories of the curse quickly circulated and were instantly dismissed by mainstream historians and academics.

  Are curses a thing of the past? As recently as 1992 a team of archaeologists excavating some of the smaller tombs close to the Giza pyramids came across the final resting place of an ancient Egyptian official called Pet-et-ty. Entombed with him was the body of his wife, Nesey-seker. The archaeologists were bemused by the tomb, since it contained two different curses. Drawings (hieroglyphs) found on the wall of the tomb revealed Pet-et-ty’s curse, in which he calls on crocodiles, lions, and hippopotamuses to devour anyone who dares to violate the tomb. Meanwhile Nesey-seker’s curse enlists the aid of similar animals, adding scorpions and snakes to the list of perils facing any such violator. For 4,600 years the tomb had remained intact, until its discovery in October 1992. Man-sour Bauriak, the Egyptian antiquities inspector who was in overall charge of the excavations, later revealed that when Pet-et-ty and Nesey-seker’s tomb was opened and disturbed, a number of things began to go wrong. One of the tomb inspectors had his home destroyed by an earthquake; an experienced photographer was injured when his ladder collapsed into Pet-et-ty’s burial chamber; a train carrying material away from the site derailed.

  Are such incidents evidence of a curse, or pure coincidence? It was Howard Carter, the archaeologist and great denouncer of curses, who once wrote that ‘all sane people should dismiss such inventions with contempt.’ Despite his protestations, we now know that prior to his death he lived in fear of the gods of the Egyptian afterlife, in particular Anubis. Carter was undoubtedly wracked by guilt about his own role in the opening of the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

  Stories of the curse persisted, and they continue to do so, as the public clamour for every sinister detail associated with stories that might reveal the existences of curses. In 2007 it was reported that an unnamed German man had
returned a plundered ancient Egyptian carving to its rightful home, as he believed it had fatally cursed his family. The relic had been stolen a few years earlier from its resting place the Valley of Kings. The man had wanted to steal it and take it home to Germany as a souvenir of his trip. It was during the return journey to Europe that his troubles began. According to an anonymous note that accompanied the carving when it was returned to the Egyptian embassy in Berlin in 2004, the thief was struck down by inexplicable fatigue and a fever that progressed to paralysis, and ultimately caused his death. His family was aware that this once fit and healthy man had become ill only after stealing the piece, and so the stolen item was returned the Egyptians by his stepson, who believed that the thief’s torment would not end with death, and that the artifact would continue to cause harm to the immediate family until it was returned. By returning the carving to Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities he hoped his stepfather’s soul could rest in peace and his remaining family could live happy and contented lives.

  In 2011, I was told of another family who had suffered from what they believed to be the curse of the pharaohs. They have requested anonymity so cannot be named, but they live in Florida, USA. In 1998 the head of the family, who was a retired serviceman, travelled to Egypt to assist a close friend on an archaeological dig. He was not an archaeologist, but he had a mild interest in ancient Egyptian history and welcomed the opportunity to not only visit the country, but also to broaden his knowledge and experience. The dig site was at Luxor (Thebes) and the man was given menial tasks to help make the work of the genuine team of archaeologists simpler. One day he explored the site on his own and wandered a short distance outside the temple. Warm, he sat down for a rest by one of the sphinx statues that lined an ancient avenue leading to the temple. There he was approached by a local man who asked if he had a cigarette. He handed over a cigarette and his lighter, and the man sat down beside him. He was asked if he was interested in purchasing genuine artifacts from the tombs; smaller, easily transported items. He said that he was and told the man he would not be prepared to pay much for the items he wanted. The two men agreed to meet at the same time the next day and that they would come alone.